Specialist to fit national resource centre in Birmingham

An office fit-out and refurbishment specialist will deliver a new national resource centre for trainee opticians in Birmingham.

Overbury, who has an office in Birmingham, will fit out the new national education and examinations hub of The Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO), who represent more than 6,000 qualified dispensing opticians in the UK, at Aston Cross Business Village.

ABDO will take 13,000 sq ft across two floors of the Aqueous building in Rocky Lane, Aston. Overbury will fully fit out of the resource centre, including rooms divided by partition walls for dispensing practical exam sections, and with the potential to be opened up for conferences, seminars, training, revision and other courses. It will also include rooms for exams, smaller meetings, a glazing lab and 10 clinical bays equipped.

The project is scheduled for completion by June 2018, and will be the new location for all dispensing and contact lens practical examinations, and ABDO’s first site in the Midlands.

Michele Clifton, office design account manager at Overbury’s Birmingham central team, said: ““We are excited by ABDO’s vision for the new office space and are looking forward to meeting the challenge of delivering an industry-leading facility that will allow for many new opticians to be trained and developed here in Birmingham.”

Alicia Thompson, director of professional examinations at ABDO, said: “ABDO’s National Resource Centre will be the pinnacle of training and assessment. The changing landscape of our profession will naturally expand our scope of practice and we need the facilities to ensure our members are both competent and confident to embrace change and explore the exciting potential this brings.”